3 Things You Can Do to Make Your Look Professional

Are you embarrassed to send people to your website because your design doesn’t convey the level of professionalism you want it to?

Looking for ways to make your blog look more professional?

Well my friend…

I hope that this blog post get’s your creative juices flowing and gives you to get you going with designing a blog that BOOMS for your business.

This leads me to the Million Dollar Question…

Does Blog Design Matter?

I’ve heard it from both angles to be honest with you.

Some say that design matters. Others say that it doesn’t matter all that much because the primary goal of your blog should be customer acquisition and lead generation.

In my humble opinion, I think that blog design DOES matter for two main reasons:

The level of competition out there in the blogosphere and secondly conversions!

Now:

When blogging wasn’t as popular, design didn’t matter all that much. It was easy to get away with throwing up a standard blog theme and that was pretty much it.

But…

Since the “blogosphere” is more crowded, branding your blog will give you a better chance of standing out from all of the competition that’s out there.

Aesthetics Vs Conversions? Which One Should You Focus On

I was reading an article a little while back from the folks over at ConversionXL abouteffective web design.

In this post, Peep Laja mentioned that while “design” is important, conversions are equally important.

What does this mean?

This means that as you are designing your blog you should put an emphasis on:

Making your blog look and feel good … and …

Using marketing psychology to design your blog to convert your visitors to email subscribers and

Ultimately using your blog to attract new clients for your business

I’ll admit it:

When I ventured out into the world of web design, I put a lot of emphasis on “how pretty” a website was.

I didn’t think enough about how important designing a site for conversions was. Boooo to that!

As I’ve learned and grown more in the web design space, I make it my business to put an emphasis on both.

How to Make Your Blog Look Professional: 3 Tips for the DIY’er

If I had to give three tips for making your blog visually appealing DIY style, they would be the following:

Tip #1: Use a consistent color scheme throughout your blog

You do not have to get crazy with this peeps. I understand that we are all different and want to infuse our personalities into your blog’s designs (as you should).

But…

You have to also remember that you want to give your visitors the BEST browsing experience possible.

Using a gazillion different color combinations on your site is just too much. Try to keep it simple.

Two blog’s that I’ve seen doing an amazing job with their color schemes are Ash Ambirge of The Middle Finger Project and Ming Lee of SnobLife.

Ash Ambirge’s Blog Design (The Middle Finger Project)

Ash Ambrige The Middle Finger Project

Ming Lee’s Site SnobLife.com

As you can see from these two examples, a little goes a very long way yall!

Tip #2: Brand your blog post graphics

Yeppers —– > brand those graphics peeps!

What does branding a blog graphic entail? Here is a running list of criteria that I use to brand my blog graphics:

Using color schemes that complement your blog. If you have a blog that has purple in the design, then consider adding a hint of purple somewhere in your blog post graphics to keep things consistent.

Using complimentary fonts in your blog post graphics. Please peeps…don’t try to go overboard with the fonts. It’s just too much. Try keeping your fonts at a minimum of 2-3 in your graphics.

Brand each graphic with your blog’s URL. You will want to get in the habit of doing this so that when someone comes across your blog graphics online, they will know who the graphic belongs to.

Try to keep the design of your blog graphics consistent. This is one of the mistakes that I see a lotttt of blog owners make. A different blog graphic for this post…then another one for this post. This causes brand confusion. Sooo…at all costs, try keeping your blog post graphic uniform for all of your content. If you want a done for you solution to branding your blog post graphics, check out these branding kits.

Here is a screenshot of my current blog post graphics….

Blog Post Graphics from YCG

Tip #3: Declutter your blog with unnecessary stuff

Have you experienced this before?

You visit someone’s blog trying to read a blog post they’ve written.

But…

As soon as you get to the blog you are bombarded with all kinds of advertisements, pop ups and etc?

Annoying right?

I understand that there are a lot of people trying to monetize their sites with advertisements. There is nothing wrong with this…

But ad’s popping up all over the place takes away from the visitor’s experience. There is nothing more distracting and frustrating than trying to read a blog post with stuff popping up everywhere.

Kim

Kim, YourChicGeek is a tech savvy diva + founder of YourChicGeek.com. She is passionate about teaching small biz's how to go from unnoticed to unstoppable online using tech and digital marketing. Kim has created several online courses and DIY trainings in the Blazing Branding Academy that help small businesses flourish online. You can contact Kim to hop on a quick 15 minute call to chat about your digital marketing goals.

Hey there and Welcome to the Site!

Hello there! I am Kim George, YourChicGeek and I'm here to help you go from Unnoticed to Unstoppable on the web with make TECH and digital marketing. Let's Get To It!